Team GB?

Geographical /political ignorance that’s what it is.

The British Isles – Physical/Geographical. All the islands which make up the archipeligo just off Europe to the north west of the continental mainland. This includes Great Britain, Ireland, The Channel Islands, The Scilly Isles, The Isles of Man  and Wight. They include the Hebrides, and the Northern Isles (Orkney and Shetland).

Great Britain – Physical. This is the island of Great Britain which comprises England, Scotland and Wales.

United Kingdom – Political. This is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and includes most of the British Isles but excludes the Irish Republic.

Therefore, why would a competitor from Northern Ireland, Shetland or Jersey feel included in “Team GB”?

It would not surprise me at all if a majority of the residents of the British Isles did not know these simple facts above.

No wonder they confuse the flags of two sworn enemies!

It’s all part of the same ignorance that confuses England/GB/UK and it gets right on my threepenny bits!

If anything it should be Team UK.

Anyway the opening ceremony is on in a few hours.

I’m heading for the hills!

 

Awards Ceremonies

I see that rather excitingly, U2 have been voted by Q readers as the greatest act of the last quarter of a century…………(yawn! – excuse me.)

Aftere a gloriously tense opening of the envelope, Coldplay were named as (yawn…….) best act in the world today.

Elbow,…..blah! blah! Adelle….blah! blah! Arctic Monkeys……blah! blah!… (yawn!)…….Noel Gallagher, Souxie and the Banshees……..blah! blah! (yawn!)

Join us tonight at The Ben Lomond Free Press Awards (at my house) where awards ceremonies, reality TV and Ricky Gervais fight it out for the top prize of most vainglorious, irritating and pointless things on the planet.

Team Grumpy

When did ‘teams’ pervade everything from sales and marketing to customer service to people who like a particular band/film/ artist?

When did that happen?

You used to read a blurb for something and there would be a phone number or an address with an exhortation to “contact our representative”.

Not now; it’s “Contact our sales team” or “Contact our specialist advisory team” or something similar.

Is it just me who imagines squad of guys and gals just back from a quick game of basketball, all manning the phones wiping sweat from their brow with a towel?

Call me old fashioned but I have a bit more confidence when someone to whom I’m speaking on the phone says “I’ll refer that question to a colleague”,  or “I’ll transfer you to another member of staff who will be able to help you”. “I’m just passing you to another member of the team” means I’m the basketball. Having (metaphorically of course) swivelled on Daryl’s finger, he’s grabbed me with both hands and now I’ve been thrown to Tracy.

“Halllao” says Tracy. I’m sure there is a special training school somewhere in the home counties that they teach telesales people to say hello like this. “Daryl has passed you over to me because you’re having a problem?” The question mark denotes not a question but the irritating habit that people have these days of their voice rising at the end of a sentence. “I’d like to resolve the matter?” “I’ll just go over a few security questions?” “I’m just waiting for that to come up on the screen?”. The rise in the vocal tone seems to be asking for a reply so one mumbles “yes” or “ok”. The whole thing is quite meaningless.

Anyway back to teams. The mourners gathered outside the Amy Winehouse (see what I did there?) are now being dubbed “Team Amy” in the press. “Team Amy?” What the f*** is happening to society?

My two daughters as well as being into Harry Potter, like all these trashy teen vampire movies. One is apparently in “Team Edward” and the other is in “Team Jacob”. There is quite a rivalry.

And another thing when did passengers become customers?

“A message for passengers travelling on the 3:25 to Edinburgh” has now become “A message for customers travelling on the 3:25 to Edinburgh?” Aye, note that f***ing question mark again!!

And notice how even the NHS refers to customers first and patients second? It’s subtle, but is it an insidious way of making us think that this is something we should be paying for at the point of use?

Am I going to phone up the doctor one day soon and have a conversation along the lines of:

“NHS customer team, Mercedes speaking, how may I help you?”

“I’ve got piles”

“Ok hold on until I transfer you to our pain in the arse team?” (phone goes on hold and plays some horrible interminable “R & B” wailing noises interrupted by a message saying “Your call is important to us, please continue to hold…..that pack of frozen peas near the pain”)

Coming soon…..When did continental quilts become duvets?

Sense? Us?

So I finally sat down to do it last night. Perhaps the best incentive to do it is provided on the Scottish government’s website:

Members of the census non-compliance team will visit people that refuse to fill in and return the questionnaire. Anyone who continues to refuse to fill in their census questionnaire will be reported to the Procurator Fiscal.

You risk a fine of up to £1,000 if you don’t fill in and return your census questionnaire.

Question 16 presented me with a dichotomy:

I simply love the various rich dialects spoken in Scotland. I also love all the old words and phrases. However I hope this question isn’t a trojan horse to promote the complete nonsense of translating documents and road signs into Scots.

Of course it’s all begun, and I can only hope that the completely unnecessary translated pages at the Scottish Parliament are not a sign of things to come.

These translations are for no-one. Is there is anyone in Scotland who speaks as if they are appearing as a guest in the Broons by using a kind of ersatz amalgam of several different versions of Scots?

It is really beyond belief that there is and that they require a written translation to unerstaun parliamentary information.

Anyway, back to the census form. I clicked the boxes which affirm that I can understand, speak, read and write Scots, in the full knowledge that many people will give the same answers but with a very different attitude to my own.

And yes I did say clicked the boxes, the online version was simple and I completed it in about 20 minutes.

If you’re in Scotland and want to complete it online, click here

The very first census on these shores took place in the kingdom of Dalriada (comprising parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland) in the 7th century.

The first English census was the domesday book compiled by the Normans in the eleventh century.

Modern UK censuses began in 1801 and have continued every ten years until the present day, with a break in 1941 for the second world war.

There is some debate whether this census may be the last as so much information is now held about us on various databases anyway.

Tesco will probably provide the info for the next one.

Footnote: I just heard on Radio Scotland a government mannie explaining that the question about Scots was to see ‘what support’ the language required. ‘Much in the same way that Gaelic has received support over the last hundred years’ he said, speaking from his bahooky.

That support includes translated government documents, road signs, subsidised TV channels, schools etc. etc. which has done a fantastic job in reviving the language which seems to have done the square root of hee-haw to arrest the decline in the numbers speaking Gaelic.

Don’t these eejits get it? On the one hand they seem to be telling us that Scots is a separate living vibrant language that has survived untroubled by government interference for hunners o’ years, and on the other that it ‘needs support’.

Chanty wrastlers and tumshies that they are.

Here’s a wee hand grenade for the debate. It is precisely because of the street quality of Scots, the edgy organic nature of it, the kind of almost anti-establishment idiom in which it operates that makes it so good to hear and use.

Hand it over to the academics and tartan taliban and we’ll start to hear the kind of phoney Scots language currently only heard within the confines of Burns suppers in Edinburgh. I feared all this at the opening of the Scottish pairlament when I heard some of these types singing ‘four aw thet end aw thet, a men’s a men four aw thet’ And just to emphasise what a farce the whole thing is there is even a wabsicht to help you decide whether you can speak or understand Scots.

Helpfully the home page is in English.

We’re All In This Together – Aye. Right.

I hesitated to write about it because everybody is contributing their twopence worth, some of it very worthy and constructive, some of it inarticulate rage. I’ve got some rage myself hopefully not all inarticulate.

I was interested in the news report this morning which stated that North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire look like the authorities who will be least well placed to recover from government cuts in Scotland according to a report by Experian. The Sunday Herald were interested too and contacted me today for my take on how I’ll be affected as someone who runs a micro business in West Dunbartonshire. So writing from that perspective I may have something to offer the debate

A micro business by the way, is one which employs fewer than ten people and turns over less than two million Euros. Something like one third of the work force in Scotland earn their living in such concerns. Usually these are businesses where the owner is involved in the day-to-day running of the operation. He/she will know their employees, their families, their birthdays, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses.

The oft quoted “SME” (small to medium sized enterprise) covers a large disparate range of companies. A small business is defined as one employing more than ten but fewer than fifty employees and having a t/o off less than £10m Euros. A medium sized business is one which employs between 50 and 250 people with a t/o of less than 50 million Euros.

Often when people refer to SMEs they actually mean a micro business. Government sources and commentators have been talking a lot about both over recent days. Many of them have been saying that the estimated 500,000 jobs expected to be lost in the public sector will be replaced by the private sector recruiting to the tune of an EXTRA two million jobs over the short to medium term.

Excuse me, but what fucking planet are these people on?

Did I miss the incentives to be offered to small employers in yesterday’s deliberations? Just what was the stimulus package setting out how the economy will be set on the road to recovery? Silly me, it was cuts, cuts and more cuts.

I did notice that Cloud Cuckoo Land Incorporated the European Parliament has decided to grant maternity leave on full pay for a whole year.

Just keep a look out for the survey that finds that surprisingly employers seem to be taking on fewer women of child bearing age. QED.

Anyway, lets get back to West Dunbartonshire and I’ll tell you why the apparent strategy (or vain hope if you like) of the private sector brimming with job vacancies ain’t going to happen.

Public sector job losses will mean fewer wage packets in the local economy. A tragedy for the folk losing their jobs and also for the businesses which rely on their custom to keep their costs covered and employees employed.

Those people who rely on benefits and are about to have those benefits cut will suffer financial hardship. Not only that they will have less money to spend. That’s right you know what I’m going to say next, money which is spent in local shops and businesses.

So fewer wage packets, lower benefits and less money in the local economy.

Business turnover down.

At which point do these fucking muppets, Cameron, Osborne, Alexander et al think that these businesses are going to suddenly employ all the folk who have been laid off, and not only them but a fair few of the ones on benefits as well?

In West Dunbartonshire trading has been difficult for a very high proportion of the last 25 years.

My business and those like us have, for two generations operated in an area of high unemployment, low wages, crazy decisions by the local authority, and now it would seem, a shattering blow of cuts which identifies the area immediately as the second least likely to recover.

"Bravo old chap! that's Dumbarton really fucked now!"

So Mr Osborne,

West Dunbartonshire is ranked poorly partly because it has more businesses struggling to pay their bills, even though it has average business start-up rates. (source: the Experian Report)

The area was struggling, even in the good times.

Your prescription of job losses and benefit cuts as well as being personal tragedies also further mitigate against a whole community literally dying for the oxygen of some stimulus or investment.

And then you’ve got the fucking cheek to say the job losses won’t be that bad because the private sector is somehow going to magic up thousands of jobs whilst they struggle to pay the rent.

“We’re all in this together”

Present and Incorrect.

There are many things, dear reader, that I am rubbish at.

Drawing, most sports that involve hand eye co-ordination, most other sports,  making decisions (although I’m not so sure about that) and a whole host of other things spring to mind.

But the thing I’m worst at, and the thing I hate most, is shopping in general and buying presents in particular. It’s not a lack of generosity or anything, I’m just crap at choosing presents and coping with what’s involved in doing it. This has been thrown into sharp focus by Mothers Day . Actually I’m quite encouraged by clicking on that to see that the original modern concept of Mothers Day came out of a pacifist movement in the USA. However it has become the construct of card manufacturers, florists, choclatiers and many others since.

Like Christmas it’s another completely unnecessary marking of a day by superfluous consumerism.

However rather than try to reason with either my wife or mother about that (the old saying about discretion and valour comes to mind), I along with millions of other clueless sons, husbands and fathers set about trying to choose some gifts for this occasion yesterday. I’ve excluded daughters here. There may be exceptions but women in general have the ability, nay the knack of buying the right thing for the right person. Unfortunately my daughters delegated the task to me. Och! they’re still young.

I did go seeking out cards with them last week. Any card which gave the merest impression of being in any way “soppy” was greeted by my elder daughter with the exclamation “barf bag please dad!”.

I had intended getting something from one of my fellow small shops but I was working yesterday (typically I had left it late) and didn’t manage to get out before closing time at 5:30. So I was basically left with the choice of my two least favourite shops out of all shops.

Argos and Asda.

I detest Argos. It’s not even a proper shop – it’s a catalogue with a warehouse. Every corner cut and every competitor undercut. I did go in and have a look but it was a token gesture. I flicked aimlessly, cluelessly and without a scintilla of inspiration, through the pages for a few minutes and that was it.

So, Asda it was. The bastard son of Wal Mart. They actually employ a wee guy to stand at the door and smile and wave and say hello to people.

“Hello there!” said Tommy (for it was he) smiling and waving as I walked in. I’m caught on such occasions between sympathy and respect for someone doing a pretty difficult job and the uncontrollable urge to shout “Aw just go and take a good run and fuck to yourself!” and perhaps accompany it with some gratuitous assault or other.

The foyer area was jam packed full of flowers and plants in various stages of decay. Many of them were dyed in gaudy colours. All the bouquets might as well have had a big label on saying “Bought at supermarket/filling station on way home (delete where applicable) on them. Some of the orchids were actually quite nice but looked very delicate.

Up to the CD aisle it was, on the way picking up a wee filter coffee maker for a fiver. I’m the only one who drinks coffee in the house so a smaller coffee maker seemed a good idea. I looked at the CDs. Piles of rubbish especially produced or at least grouped together for the occasion. Compilations with pink covers called things like “Thank you mum!” “Hits for mums” “Twenty love ballads” and other horseshit.

Then, talking of horseshit, I spotted Rod Stewart’s new album. It’s a collection of Motown songs. Mrs Bigrab has liked Rod since his Faces days (ie when he was pretty good – before he met Britt Ekland about 35 years ago) and whilst I wondered if she’d appreciate this, it was getting to the desperate stage. Down to the books and I picked up one I thought she’d like, then a wee box of chocs and a wee plant display thing for my own mum.

Down to the front to pay in one of these self serve kiosks. “Excuse me sir there’s a queue!” said a young lad who seemed to be employed with the specific purpose of telling people there’s a queue. He wasn’t kidding. Just to get the opportunity to pay there was a queue of about twelve folk.

Eventually I got to the kiosk. An automaton guided me through the process. The coffee maker wouldn’t scan. The Rod Stewart CD, which I was trying to hide in case anyone thought it was for myself wouldn’t scan.

An assistant helped.

The machine wouldn’t accept my money.

An assistant helped.

Meanwhile in Wal Mart’s HQ they’re probably devising more reliable bar code readers and money grabbers so that they can do away with assistants completely.

I hope as the kids and I offer the pathetic baubles later that Mrs B might for a minute reflect on the horror that had to be endured to get them.

She’ll probably just smile, say thanks and think “What a pile of shit!”

I wonder if I should say “Like Christmas it’s another completely unnecessary marking of a day by superfluous consumerism.”

Do you think it’d work?

Employment Law Latest

I was talking the other day to a fellow small businessman and we were remarking just how difficult it is becoming to simply conduct one’s business.

I will say right here without any fear of contradiction that anyone who runs a business with a handful of employees and claims to do so 100% within the law is quite frankly a liar. There simply is no logistical way that every piece of employment law and health and safety legislation spewed out by Brussels and Westminster is implemented fully in any SME. If it were, it would require at least one person employed full time in each business.

All this person would do would be to complete risk assessments, deal with the finer points of employees idiosyncracies and walk around with several trolleys each containing bound volumes of law, law and more law.

I hear commentators on the media all the time with the phrase “employers have to be more flexible”. Most recently this was in relation to paternity leave.

I was in the position of having an employee requiring paternity leave a couple of years ago. Instead he took it (at one day’s notice) as part of his annual paid leave and had I think, ten days off. Fair enough and it was good that he could spend this time with his new child and got paid.

However now this isn’t good enough. Campaigners are up in arms that employees are following this option (using paid annual leave) and want to see the law changed.

My paternity leave for my two kids births were 1)  An hour and 2) Two hours fifteen minutes.

The current holiday right of 28 days per employee is great – heck I might even get 28 days holiday in a year myself sometime! Coincidentally it’s roughly the total of days holiday I had in my first seven years of paying the stamp.

OK, ok certain things in self employment just come with the territory and of course they are not all bad.

Employees of course need rights to protect them from unscrupulous employers but I fear that the law is becoming very unbalanced towards rights (many of which are trivial and unnecessary) and away from obligations on the part of employees whilst there is a converse situation on employers.

Within big companies these laws are easily absorbed. A legal department will quickly analyze and implement changes. This of course could mean switching production to Poland or Thailand and frequently does.

It’s a different story in SMEs (small to medium sized enterprises) who don’t have the same range of options.

So next time you hear Gordon Broon awarding everyone an extra three days holiday and saying that it’s good for hardworkingfamilies, spare a thought for the poor sods who have just been landed with another 9, 12, 15 or maybe 30 days staff absence to cope with.

Paid absence.

Whatever my kids do in life I will do all I can  to dissuade them from choosing the self employed path.

It really isn’t worth it on a small scale any more.

Big business will be the only business in the not too distant future I fear.

That’s a shame.

Footnote:

I wrote the above after reading about this particular can of worms for employers in the Guardian.

It contains the quite brilliant quote from Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier “If only the sandals and the pistachio-coloured shirts could be put in a pile and burnt,and every vegetarian, teetotaller, and creeping Jesus sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly!”

Anybody Notice?

I wonder if it’s just me but I can’t help noticing all the notices pinned up around the place. For instance we went to Keswick swimming pool/leisure centre the other day and there was a plethora of notices.

As well as the normal rules and regulations that you would expect of a swimming pool, there were notices everywhere. If you had a whole day to spare I doubt whether you’d have the time to read them all. For instance here is their “Toilet Charter” (honest! I kid you not!)

There is also a changing room charter, a swimming area charter, a reception area charter etc. etc.

I mean how wrapped up in knots are we as a society when this type of guff is required just to go for a swim? -Sure I appreciate that the place is kept clean and tidy – just keep it that way, don’t waste a minute of my life by sticking a notice in front of me about it!

The irony of the whole thing is that because my daughter has a medical condition, I informed the staff as directed by the various notices. One looked completely at a loss as to why I was mentioning the fact, another told me to take one course of action and another then told me that was wrong and I should take another course of action – only to be reprimanded by another member of staff!

In other words the staff don’t read the fucking notices, don’t know the rules and don’t have the merest clue that they are bound by the various “charters” dreamed up by some officious twerp in an office in Carlisle!

Anyway this was not the only notice to cause me amusement. Because Cumbria is a haven for red squirrels, these are dotted around:

Racism in nature

Basically, grey squirrels are not indigenous to the UK. They were introduced (probably on a ship) from North America in fairly recent history. Where they gain a foothold the native red squirrels fare badly from diseases which are carried by the greys and there is increased competition for food and shelter. Therefore if you see any grey squirrels, call Bernard, Wendy or Jerry and one of them will be round shortly to sort them out with a twelve bore!

I’m sure Jack Deighton will appreciate this one (seen at Eden Ostrich World)

It seems that supervising children beyond this point is forbidden at all times!

Or something.

What about these?

The most exciting museum ever?

The most boring museum ever?

I noticed this one by googling!

Don’t You Just Hate It?

When you shake hands on a deal and then the deal becomes something quite different from what you agreed?

Depending on how they handle a complaint from me, a well known Scottish car dealership will be named and shamed here soon.

I bought a commercial vehicle from them last week and confirmed with the salesman that the price included VAT. The dealer, at my request, also promised to provide me with a VAT invoice so that I could reclaim the VAT element of the price.

They are now wringing their hands and saying that actually, due to some scheme or other there was no VAT charged on the vehicle and that in fact because the vehicle was traded in by a non VAT registered customer there was no VAT to be charged. Quite, quite different to the story told by the salesman.

Their mistake would cost me £1400 if I accept it.

Those of you who know me will know that the likelihood of my accepting it is roughly equivalent to the chance of a rocking horse producing some fertiliser for my garden.

However everyone deserves a chance to put things right when they’ve made a mistake, so no names no pack drill.

Yet.

Three Wise Monkeys?

They’ve all been at it this Christmas. The Archbishop of Cant-hypocrisy, Archbishop Des O’Connor and a host of other “religious” leaders have been routinely talking pish delivering their moral analyses of the world and expressing their hopes for the future.

The focus here in the UK has fallen on three messages in particular, Those being from The Pope, The Queen and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran or, to borrow an expression from a friend of mine, Hear no evil, Speak no evil and Evil.

Taking the Queen’s message first. She expressed the sentiment that it would be a “sombre” Christmas for many due to the credit crunch/recession. Presumably those with half a dozen castles and a £40 million per year stipend from the Taxpayer will escape the worst of the deprivation. She then took out an onion as she said how the happiest people were often those who gave rather than received. Hmmmmm.

"Does anyone know if Fortnum and Mason take Provident cheques?

Then there’s the Pope. He exclaims that homosexuality is as big a threat to mankind as climate change. Apparently this is all down to some obscure part of the Old Testament which declares it (homosexuality) as an abomination to the Lord. The same book (Leviticus) also recommends the sacrificing of bulls, selling one’s daughter into slavery, and the stoning to death of anyone who works on the Sabbath. Eating shellfish is also an abomination to the Lord apparently. Basically if you work on a Sunday and enjoy the odd prawn cocktail you’re off to eternal fire. This is all The Good Old Days according to Pope Benny.

Harrass a Homo and Save the Planet!

Finally, as the latest in its series of alternative Christmas speeches, which in previous years has included Quentin Crisp, Sharon Osbourne and Marge Simpson, we had Channel 4 giving a platform to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. The president agrees with the pope on homosexuality. In fact he claims there are no gays in Iran. This is down to the fact that if anyone is suspected of such practice they are rounded up and executed. The pres is also a holocaust denier and has recommended the extermination of all Jews. However he laid the old peace and love at Christmas thing on thick.

Death to Jews! Death to Gays! Peace and Love!

But perhaps I’m being a little unfair.

Has any reader been inspired by a political/ religious message over the festive season? Let’s hear from you.